Revealed: The eye-watering cost of paying hundreds of suspended police officers to stay at home hits record £60m a year - with Labour's tax raid and wage rises driving up costs

By DAVID BARRETT, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR Published: 22:07, 17 August 2026 | Updated: 22:08, 17 August 2026 Police officers suspended from duty on full pay are costing the taxpayer a record £60million a year, with forces handing over more than £163,000 a day to staff sitting at home. The 750 officers barred from work over alleged wrongdoing are costing an average of £79,552 each, a bill that works out at almost £1.15million every week. The total is up £2.9million on the £56.8million recorded in March 2025, even though the number of officers sent home actually fell by two over the same 12 months. Reasons for the increase include Labour's increase in employer National Insurance contributions in April last year, along with a 4.2 per cent pay rise awarded to officers in September. A further factor is that more senior ranks are now suspended, who are on higher salaries. There are now 38 inspectors and 11 chief inspectors on so-called 'gardening leave', up from 34 and nine respectively, each of them earning up to £74,310 a year. The bulk of the tally is made up of 574 constables and 115 sergeants, but four chief officers of the rank of assistant chief constable or above are also barred. Numbers of suspended officers have rocketed in recent years from just 124 in 2021 and 225 in 2022, before police bosses began cracking down on misconduct in the ranks.  Some suspended officers will have spent years picking up their full pay packets while their disciplinary cases and any potential appeals grind on Your browser does not support iframes.  The Metropolitan Police, as the country's largest force, is missing the most officers with 179 suspended, followed by Greater Manchester with 82, West Midlands with 52, Lancashire with 29 and Kent with 28. Some of the suspended officers will have spent years picking up their full pay packets while their disciplinary cases and any potential appeals grind on. Sometimes the officers are allowed back into the force, but if they are dismissed for wrongdoing they will keep the wages they received and normally their accrued pension rights. One notorious case was that of the Met's Detective Inspector Warren Arter, who was suspended for seven years while pocketing around £400,000 in wages before being sacked. The 53-year-old, who worked on a unit dealing with rape victims, was found to have offered to supply cocaine and taken drugs at sordid swinging parties. He was later charged with misconduct in public office and was found dead in his cell at HMP Wandsworth, having cost the force a fortune in wages. The wages of the suspended officers came to £40million on their own, but forces must pay 35.3 per cent of every salary into the police pension scheme on top. That adds £14.1million to the bill, while employer National Insurance accounts for another £5.4million of taxpayers' money. Even the £59.7million total is an underestimate because it excludes London weighting, overtime and allowances, meaning the real cost of keeping the officers at home is higher still. Callum McGoldrick, investigations campaign manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'Taxpayers will be furious to find millions of pounds being paid out to suspended officers. 'It is wholly unacceptable for police accused of wrongdoing to be sitting at home on full pay while disciplinary processes drag on for years. 'Ministers and police chiefs need to urgently fix this broken system and end this absurd waste of taxpayers' cash' A Home Office spokesman said: 'We expect police misconduct to be dealt with swiftly, and where officers fall short they should be removed from policing. 'We have launched an independent, end-to-end review of the police accountability system, to help ensure it maintains the confidence of both the public and police.'